Brodie grunted. “We’d better come up with a hell of a plan.”
“Is Murphy close by?”
“Close enough. Figure we’ll need her?”
“Her. And an army, if we can raise one.”
FIFTEEN
Cait felt very much like the new kid on the block. Brodie and Leigh had worked together before and were comfortable despite their differing beliefs on some topics; they didn’t consciously shut her out, it was just that they were long accustomed to discussing things between themselves.
And Cait was conscious of her own inexperience, her lack of history in this. She was a new recruit, actively involved for only the last six months; her brother had been one of those people who became psychic because of head injuries in the last year or so, and it had been Brodie who had contacted him and made sure the other side didn’t get their hands on him.
During those dangerous and exciting weeks, Cait had decided that she wanted to work with these people. Brodie had been reluctant, telling her she was too young and should finish college before deciding what to do with her life, but she had been determined—and he’d had to admit they could not afford to turn down anyone who wanted to help. Besides, there was someone else Brodie reported to, someone who made certain decisions, and that person had decided that Cait could be of use.
She didn’t know who that was. Truth to tell, she knew blessed little about how this loosely organized group of people operated. According to Brodie, the number of people who knew most of the details could be counted on the fingers of one hand. As for the rest, they knew what they needed to know, and not a single detail more than that.
Which was fine for Brodie; unless Cait missed her guess, he was one of those few who knew everything. And his history with the group went back several years, possibly as many as ten. Cait wasn’t sure about that, but she knew he’d been involved in this for a long time. And though he didn’t talk about it—to her, at least—she had guessed that he was in this because something bad had happened to somebody he’d loved.
Of course, Sarah knew all about that. She had looked into his mind minutes ago, accepting his open invitation to do so, and she had seen all his pain. It had been on her face when she was done, a reflection of great anguish, and in her peculiarly dark eyes had been sadness and compassion and understanding.
Cait wanted that understanding, and it really bugged her that Sarah had gotten it—on a silver platter, so to speak. Hard as she’d tried in the last months, Cait hadn’t been able to get past Brodie’s guards, and he had sure as hell never thrown himself open to her in any way. Not that she was in the least psychic, but still. He treated her rather like a baby sister—when he wasn’t coming down on her like a ton of bricks for carelessness or forgetting some rule or other—and as far as she could tell, that was exactly the way he saw her. As a troublesome kid.
It was very annoying. And annoying to be working her ass off in the kitchen while he and Leigh discussed other people she didn’t know and tried to decide between themselves who they could call on for help.
“We probably don’t have much time,” Leigh was saying as she checked on potatoes fast-baking in the microwave. “Sarah isn’t going to be willing to wait much longer.”
“I know,” Brodie said. “And that limits our options. If we figure tonight is a wash—and I sure as hell don’t like the idea of moving against them at night—and that we move early tomorrow, that gives us only a few hours to make whatever preparations we can. Murphy can get here by morning. Maybe Nick and Tim. Nobody else I can think of.”
Leigh said casually, “How about Josh? He could get here in time. He could raise an army in time.”
Brodie shook his head. “No way. Duran’s too close, and I don’t want him to get so much as a whiff of Josh. No, this time it’s just us. And that isn’t much of an army, Leigh.”
“No, it’s not. On the other hand, we don’t know what we’re facing. When Sarah’s rested and eaten, we’ll see if she can give us some idea of where they’re holding Tucker, and maybe even the number of people holding him. Surely Duran wouldn’t commit more than half a dozen of his people to this. He has other irons in the fire, and I would be very surprised if he really knows Sarah’s potential value to him.”
Brodie frowned. “Now that I think about it, it’s not really like Duran to use bait to get a psychic to come to him. He tends to favor sending his goons in the dead of night to quietly remove people. Or to arrange some kind of convenient accident for them.”
“Maybe he’s feeling the pressure.”
“Maybe.” Brodie shrugged. “But if the bastard is anything, he’s deliberate; I’ve never known him to rush into anything.”
“The steaks are almost done,” Cait announced.
“The plates are in that cabinet over there, Cait. Brodie, what about weapons?”
“Compared to the other side, we’re seriously underarmed. Always have been. And we’re hamstrung by the fact that we don’t have any kind of official status or authority. We can’t just rush in and start blasting, as good as that might feel to some of us. Plus, we don’t want the kind of violence that makes headlines any more than Duran does. The only defense we have if bodies start turning up is not going to be believed, and our credibility is shot once we start talking about some vast conspiracy we can’t prove exists.” He shook his head. “No, we have to be very, very careful. In any kind of a showdown with Duran and his goons, we are critically handicapped.”
Cait tuned them out, feeling even more frustrated. She had nothing to contribute, that was the problem. She was still learning how to handle weapons, and she didn’t have the first idea how to plan for some kind of dramatic confrontation with the bad guys.
In fact, she felt incredibly useless.
They wouldn’t let her help clean up after the meal, and since by then much of her energy and all of her anxiety had returned, Sarah found herself moving restlessly around the living room while they worked in the kitchen.
The need to find Tucker was nearly overpowering now, and with it came the niggling awareness of something else that was…wrong. She didn’t know what it was, but somewhere, sometime, she had missed something she should have paid attention to. Information or an observation…something. Whatever it was, it seemed to be out of reach now; whenever she tried to concentrate on it, all she got was increasing uneasiness and the urge to look back over her shoulder.
Watching. Somebody’s watching. But is it me, or Tucker? The uneasiness he felt about that went with him into his dreams…
That was part of her apprehension, she knew. That skin-crawling sensation of being watched had been uppermost in Tucker’s consciousness just before his keepers had knocked him out once again, and even now his sleeping mind was giving him nightmares with that theme. Eyes watching him. Creatures watching him.
Sarah wasn’t exactly caught up in the nightmares with Tucker; it was more like listening to the dim and distant sound of a television in the next room and being aware of what was going on there. She could push the faint sounds out of her conscious mind by concentrating on something else, but they were always there just under the surface, contributing to her uneasiness.
“Sarah?”
She turned to look at them as Brodie, Leigh, and Cait returned to the living room. “There isn’t much time.”
“Why not?” Leigh asked quietly. “The trap is baited and ready for you; won’t they just wait for you to come?”
“I…don’t know. I don’t think so. There’s a feeling of urgency.”
“Maybe that’s just you,” Brodie suggested. “Your need to get to Mackenzie.”
She shook her head. “No, this is something else. Somebody’s anxious, worried about time passing. I’m sure of it.”